gandhi's concept of education

8/2/2019 GANDHI'S CONCEPT OF EDUCATION

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BASIC EDUCATION SCHEME OF

MAHATMA GANDHI

Mahatma Gandhi was very much aware of the needs of

the country illiteracy and poverty was plaguing India and

steps needed to be taken to ensure that the situation was not

the same in independent India. According to him, a proper of

system of basic education is the way out to the vices that was

gripping India and that would eventually come in the way of

its development. The series of article written in the Harijan on

education formed a basis of education that he had complete

faith in. He realised that to have a proper system of education,

the nation had to have a strong monetary and fiscal condition.

In other words, education was dependent on money. To find a

constructive way out of this, he suggested that education to beself-sufficient. Thus, education would be a two-fold policy. It

would not only provide literacy but also a self sufficiency that

would be helpful to the education system and also to the

literate individual.

In 1937, at the national conference at Wardha, under

Gandhis leadership and in consideration of his ideas, thefollowing ideas were passed:

Free and compulsory education must be provided for

seven years on a nation-wide scale.

The medium of instruction should be in the mother-

tongue


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Some sort of technical training should be provided so

that the students would be able to become self-sufficient

in their future. The same craft practised ion the school

would also help in the sustaining of the school.

Through a gradual but steady policy, this system would

also be able to cover the remuneration of the teachers.

This scheme of education also came to be known as the

Nai Talim or the basic education. Nai pointed out that it is

the new way of education and talim stands forapprenticeship. The students would be an apprentice and

would master a craft that would help the student to establish

his own livelihood. Basic would also stand for fundamentals.

Thus this scheme of education was based on the national

culture and civilization of India.

Mahatma Gandhi believed that education should be able

to bring out the best of the child and the man in the Body, the

Mind and the Spirit. Literacy is not the end of education but

rather it is the way to which a sustainable way of education is

taken up the road just begun and it continues as a person

gets to know more about oneself.

Education should help the citizens of India to be self-

sufficient. It should enable a boy or a girl to develop a certain

amount of self-reliance which would help in the earning of a

livelihood. This was the reason why Gandhiji placed so much

stress on the industrial training of the child so that he becomes

acquainted with the real life. He wanted the education to

become the means of producing ideal citizens. Seeing the


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epidemic of poverty that was plaguing India, he suggested that

education should be based on industrial training and the

development of manual skill and handicrafts.

Gandhiji believed that education centres round the child.

He impressed upon people that the cultural aspect of

education is more important than the literary aspect, because it

is through the cultural aspect that the child learns to develop

his character and ideals. He was a supporter of the ancient

Indian ideals of education. Gandhiji addressed the importance

of thought, word and deed, non-violence and truth.

It is clear from the foregoing account that Gandhijis

viewed education from a comprehensive or broadminded

standpoint. Any education that develops only one aspect of

the child can be dubbed as narrow and one-sided. Thus,

Gandhiji states that education must make the individual to liveand earn his daily bread, to be the means of his sustenance. In

a way Gandhiji synthesized the individual and social aims of

education. Like Vivekananda, Gandhiji maintained that

character formation and manual skill were equally important.

Gandhijis plan of education laid stress on all types of

education physical, mental, moral, aesthetic and religious.

The scheme of the basic education clarifies the means of

education. According to Gandhiji, the most important means

of education in basic scheme was craft. About this means of

education, Gandhiji said The principle idea is to impart the

whole education of the body and the mind and the soul

through the handicraft that I taught to the children. You have

to draw out all that is in the child through teaching all the


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processes of handicraft and all your lessons in history

geography, arithmetic will be related to the craft. Thus,

some handicraft was necessary to be the centre of childs

education. Besides other craft recommended were: weaving,

carpentry agriculture gardening and other handicrafts and

other rural crafts. It was pointed out that the following criteria

should be followed in deciding about the basic craft:

Craft fulfilling individual and social means.

Craft based upon local requirement.

Craft in tune with local conditions

Craft favourable to the interest, aptitude and the

ability of the child

Less expensive and simple craft

Craft leading to all round development of

personality.

But Gandhis revolutionary educational policy has

been criticized as being medieval and impractical. One of the

first criticisms that faced this Nai talim was that there was a

dearth of teachers teachers who were artisans and artisans

who were also teachers. And to create a new pedigree of

teachers for India would be extraordinarily difficult. Professor

K.T. Shah who was a part of the Wardha conference and the

only member to oppose it made it quite clear that this scheme

would require huge amount business acumen of management


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of goods and their sale. An embargo against foreign goods

would be in keeping with the nationalistic feelings but it this

policy would also harm the existing professional artisans and

give them competition. In an article inHarijan an anonymous

reader pointed out that this would legalize child labour and

schools and colleges should be places where the young minds

should be taught about the values rather than the prices.

Rabindranath Tagore pointed out that this teaching does not

promote the childs aesthetic and creative powers and

assume that material utility, rather than development ofpersonality, is the end of education.

The kind of social transformation that Gandhi was

calling for was primarily an inner moral transformation, one

which placed as paramount the need for a conscioussimplicity and self-imposed limitation. This limitation

Gandhis scheme on the intellectual, scientific, economic and

even social spheres were therefore clearly unacceptable to the

modernist mindset. The question that was asked: who would

seriously want to give up the manifold benefits of modern life

and take up a hard life of manual work? In contrast to

Gandhis radical policy of change, his detractors of the

educational policy would see it to be medieval and

conservative. But the dominant nationalistic feelings and to

some extent the politics of the dominant elite political class

would combat the Gandhian opponents and create a middle

path for the basic education. But by the very act of negating


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the voice of the Other, by trying to efface it, they contributed

to its recognition.

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gandhi's concept of education

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